The Australian dollar is slightly up today after falling around 2 percent last Friday on the back of strong US employment numbers.
At 4.19pm (AEDT) the Aussie dollar was trading at US70.93c up from US70.62c at close of trade on Friday.
Jobs data released on Friday out of America showed the unemployment rate hitting an 8-year low of 4.9 percent, but the star performer was the average hourly earnings, which rose 0.5 percent bringing the yearly total to 2.5 percent.
The only downside of the report was the nonfarm payrolls figure, which came in at 151,000 against expectations for a number of 190,000, but it wasn’t enough to stop the jump in the US dollar.
Most analysts had written off the chance of the US Federal Reserve raising interest rates again in March or in fact at all for the rest of the year, but with last Friday’s news a rate rise is now back on the table with next month now a possibility again.
The market will now focus on a speech later in the week by US Fed president Janet Yellen as well RBA governor Glen Stevens testimony before the Australian parliament and the Aussie dollar is expected to come under further pressure if Yellen takes a hawkish tone.